HOG-CHOLERA 



AND — 



TEXAS CATTLE DISEASE 




• ' Root, Hog, or Die ! " 



Cause, Prevention and Cure. 



— BY — 

JOHN S. MELLON. 



SF 



APPROVED BY UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER 



PRICE tl. 00. 



ST. LOUIS, MO. 

Pierce Bros., Primers, 211 North Third Street. 

1878. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



©{pp. -'. gtfj$i jfxu. 

S 1 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HOG-CHOLERA 



— AND 



TEXAS CATTLE DISEASE 




** Root, Hog, or Die ! * 



Cause, Prevention and Cure 



it 



7/ 



0; 



; (^ 



— BY^-~ 

JOHN 8. 'MELLON. 



PRICE $1.00. 



ST. LOUIS, MO. 
Pierce Bros., Printers, 2*1 North Third Street, 

1878. 




COPY CF COPYRIGHT CERTIFICATE. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
No. 10,065—1, Copyright Office, Washington, D. C. 

To-wit: Be it Remembered, 
That on the 2d day of September, anno domini, 1878, John S. Mellon, of St. 
Louis, has deposited in this office the title of a hook, the title or description of 
which is in the following words, to wit: Hog-Cholera and Texas Cattle 
Disease, Cause, Prevention and Cure, by JohnS. Mellon, St. Louis, Mo.. 
1878, the right whereof he claims, as Author, in conformity with the laws 
of the United States respecting Copyrights. 

[Signed] A. R. SPOFFORD, 

Librarian of Congress. 







K m 



The following from Dr. J. 1ST. McNutt, U. S. 
Commissioner for Missouri, on this subject, is a 
sufficient endorsement of the soundness and value 
of the present work : 

Pevely, Mo., Oct. 13, 187s. 
Ma j. John S. Mellon, 

St. Louis, Mo. 

Dear Sir:— I have carefully read your treatise 
on the "hog,'* and take pleasure in assuring you that I heartily agree with 
you as to the nature of the disease. And I feel assured that if your sugges- 
tions as to growing, feeding, and caring for the hog, were carried out, 
,; hog cholera," so called, would soon almost be a thing of the past. 

Very Truly, 

J. N. McNutt. 



HEgPIt would have been easy to secure certifi- 
cates, in abundance, of the efficacy of the fore- 
going cure of hog-cholera ; but this is so com- 
mon, and generally so unreliable, that I have 
thought it better to append but a single state- 
ment, from a gentleman so well and favorably 
known that his single word will go further than 
the extravagant statements of many. The fol- 
lowing is the certificate of Col. Walker of How- 
ard County, Missouri, railroad commissioner for 
the State of Missouri : 

ST. Louis, September 6, 1878. 
Major Mellon gave me the turnip cure for hog-cholera. I selected a hog 
weighing ninety pounds that was very sick. This hog was one of a pen of 
anehunJred, out «f which eighty-seven had died. I placed the hog in a 
close pen, and cut a peck of turnips and placed them in the pen. The hog 
ate them during the day. The second day I fed lightly on corn meal mush , 
the third, the same with a little corn. The hog got well, and was the only 
one that did. JOHN WALKER. 



HOG-CHOLERA, 



OR 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The importance, to the material interests of the 
country, of the discovery and general promulga- 
tion of a sovereign remedy and sure preventive 
of the disease commonly known as hog-cholera, 
will be my sufficient apology for intruding upon 
the public the results of a long experience and pa- 
tient investigation of this subject. I claim to 
have discovered the origin, nature and cure of 
this disease ; and this claim is justified by all my 
reading, observation and experiment ; and for 
these I have had ample opportunity, and have 



HOG-CHOLERA, OR 



used them to the utmost^ as I shall now proceed 
to show. 

In the first place, I was born and reared on a 
farm, and have been keenly and practically in- 
terested in the care and culture of stock during 
my whole life. 

In the second place, from the date of my major- 
ity (and I am now fifty -eight years of age) to the 
beginning of the war between the States, I was 
constantly engaged in handling, caring for, buy- 
ing and selling, exchanging and improving stock 
of all kinds, and more particularly, swine. 

In the third place, starting With General Price in 
Missouri, I was, during four years, Commissary 
in the Confederate army, on a very large scale, 
and reporting directly to the Government. In short, 
I was a general and special agent of the Govern- 
ment in the matter of provisioning its armies. 
My field of operation and experiment, during the 
greater portion of this time, comprised the entire 
State of Mississippi and a large part of Ala- 
bama. 

In this field of labor meat, of course, was the 
great desideratum ; and meat in large quantities 



INTESTINAL FEVER tK SWINE. 3 

could only be obtained from hogs. But to pre- 
serve the hog- alive and in health until he was 
ready for killing did by no means solve the whole 
difficulty. Salt, for curing on a large scale, was 
so scarce as to be practically unobtainable. Its 
scarcity may be partly apprehended from the 
simple fact that it readily brought, in any mar- 
ket, more than 10,000 per cent, premium. Besides, 
if bacon could have been made upon a scale suf- 
ficiently large to supply the wants of the army, 
transportation was so meagre and interrupted that 
the supplies could not be conveyed to the widely 
scattered troops. The problem, then, as all will 
readily see, was a most difficult one ; no less, in- 
deed, than the creation and preservation, in many 
localities, of herds of swine sufficiently numerous 
and healthy to meet a never-ceasing demand. 

Xow, these living supplies were always liable 
to sudden destruction by the ravages of the terri- 
ble disease known as hog-cholera. Unless this 
fell destroyer could be met and baffled, all my la- 
bors for the accumulation of army supplies Avere 
liable to be rendered fruitless at any moment, and 
in the most unseasonable exigencies. 



4 HOG-CHOLERA, Oil 

Then I thought and studied, and observed and 
experimented as I had never done before. The 
entire utility of my agency and my office depen- 
ded upon success in this matter. If I could not 
both prevent and cure this terrible disease, it was 
useless to continue the work of accumulation and 
production. I set myself to study closely all the 
precedents and habits, both of health and disease, 
in the hog. I examined him living and dead, in 
every stage of health and disease, until I reached? 
at last, and rested in the simple certainty that I 
knew the secret of the terrible scourge, and could 
perfectly control it. From that time my troubles 
were ended. With twenty thousand hogs fre- 
quently on hand, in many localities and for sev- 
eral consecutive years, I experienced neither 
difficulty nor embarrassment in fulfilling the object 
of my trust. The benefits of this great success I 
desire now to impart to all who are interested, 
either practically or theoretically, in the growth 
and culture of sound and healthy swine. 

From the close of the war to the present time, 
I have diligently endeavored to secure the atten- 
tion to this subject of the Federal Government, and 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 5 

have at last, to sonic extent succeeded. I induced 
our representative in Congress, General Cockerel, 
to call on the Commissioner of Agriculture for in- 
formation upon this subject, and found him, as I 
expected, almost wholly destitute. His depart- 
ment had given the matter no systematic attention 
Subsequently I drew up, and had presented to 
Congress, a bill, which was adopted by that body 
in June, 1878, appointing a Commission for the 
thorough investigation of the subject. With Dr. 
McNutt, of that Commission, I have often met, and 
found him better posted on the general subject 
than any other man with whom I have conversed. 
As will be seen by Doc. No. 35, second session, 
forty-fifth Congress, much and varied information 
has already been elicited, and it is evident, from 
the partial reports received by the Commissioner 
of Agriculture, that the country suffers an annual 
loss, from the scourges of disease among swine, of 
not less than $40,00#,000. This fact alone is suffi- 
cient to awake the attention of the Government, 
and justify a Congressional appropriation large 
enough to exhaust all the sources of knowledge 
and skill to discover and provide a remedy ade- 



6 HOG-CHOLEUA, OR 



quate to an evil so gigantic. And when it is further 
remembered that the above named sum, large 
though it seems, merely represents the direct loss 
produced by this disease, and that no account is 
therein taken of the disastrous effects upon swine- 
culture, of individual discouragement and failure, 
and the necessary indifference or aversion to this 
industry which thence results, it will be seen that 
no statement could we]l exaggerate the importance 
of this interest to the material prosperity of the 
country. In the language of one of the sufferers, 
addressed to the Commissioner of Agriculture, we 
might almost be justified in saying, " Rid us of the 
hog-cholera, and we will bear the whole burden of 
the national debt." 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 



CHAPTER H. 



EISE AND PROGRESS OF HOG-CHOLERA. 

The report of the Commissioner of Agriculture 
for 1875 contains an article on " Hog-Cholera — 
Intestinal Fever in Swine," by Prof. James Low, 
of Ithaca, 1ST. Y., in which the symptoms and 
diagnosis of this disease are more accurately 
characterized, than in any other production 
which has fallen under my observation. This 
disease he properly enough defines as "a speci- 
fic, contagious fever of swine, characterized by 
congestion knd ulceration of the mucous mem- 
brane of the intestines, and to a less extent of 
the stomach ; by general heat and redness of the 
skin, enaceable by pressure ; by small red spots, 
complicated or not by elevations and blisters ; by 
black spots and patches of blood escaped from 
its proper vessels on the integument, the snout, 
nose, eyes, mouth and all other visible mucous 
membranes, and on the internal organs, menace- 



8 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 

able by pressure and tending to sloughing ;" and 
he adds, incorrectly as I think, and in plain incon- 
sistency with a subsequent statement, " usually 
by liquid and fetid diarrhoea." 

" The malady has been long known to pig-rais- 
ers and pork-factors in the Old World and the New, 
but in veterinary works it has been mistakenly 
placed in the list of malignant anthrax affections, 
to which some of its lesions bear a striking re- 
semblance. Two English works, published within 
the last year, repeat this time-honored fallacy. 
That it is essentially distinct, is shown by the 
fact that its virus, so frightfully contagious and 
fatal to pigs, is not communicable, to any other 
domestic animal. 1 ' 

Prof. Low goes on to say, with perfect accuracy, 
though in clear contradiction with his own remark 
above noted, that " The common American desig- 
nation of hog-cholera has only the diarrhoea to 
support it, and as we see outbreaks, in which this 
feature is mainly remarkable for its absence, the 
name comes to be an absolute misnomer." 

All this, and much that follows is good enough, 
and the whole paper gives evidence of mature 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 9 

deliberation and careful preparation, and is alto- 
gether a valuable contribution to the literature of 
this subject. It is only deficient in that wide and 
careful induction, which could alone have led its 
author to a safe and successful generalization on 
the cause and cure of this disease. His sugges- 
tions therefore on this branch of the subject, 
though coming from a scientific man, are really 
empirical and practically worthless. 

Prof. H. J. Detmers, V. S., Bellegarde, Kans., 
in a report of the Commissioner of Agriculture 
for 1878, mainly devoted to this particular subject, 
contributes a paper still more valuable than that 
of Prof. Low, inasmuch as he has given to the 
matter more time and attention, and is therefore 
possessed of a wider range of practical information 
In this paper Prof. Detmers even hints at what I 
deem the real cause of the malignant disease 
known as hog cholera, though he passes it with an 
observation so slight as to indicate that it had made 
no particular impression upon his own mind. 

According to all my observation, this disease 
originates only with the fat hog. In all other 
cases it is the effect of contagion. 



10 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 

The first noticeable effect is, that the hog seems 
stupid, more or less off his feed, and disposed to 
go apart from the rest of the herd or pen. 

2. He lies on his belly instead of on his side. 

3. He shows great thirst, and this in propor- 
tion to his fatness. 

4. Stands with his back hnmped up. 

5. Some cough in the secondary stage of the 
disease. The disease has then reached the lungs. 

6. Generally there is evidence of constipation, 
but in exceptional instances a fetid diarrhoea. . 

7. On the second day there are frequent and 
obviously difficult and painful attempts at urina- 
tion. The kidneys are then effected. 

8. Next may be observed the frequent or per- 
sistent raising of the snout and shaking of the 
head. The disease has attacked the brain. 

9. Finally staggering, reeling, and death. 

10. Generally it may be observed that the flesh 
shrinks with startling rapidity, as if the very 
substance of the hog were melting away in some 
internal fire. 

JSTow, if we open and examine the dead hog, we 
shall find the stomach, intestines, lungs, heart, 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 11 

kidneys, brain and spinal marrow, all more or less, 
deeply deranged and affected. Sometimes, but 
rarely, even tlie spleen and liver will be fonnd in 
the same abnormal state, and the bones, after 
death, disappear with the flesh. 

The stomach may show no more than a pink 
blush, but more commonly it is of a deep red, 
from congestion, and its mucous membrane is 
often black throughout. 

The small intestines are usually extensively 
congested and of a deep red, in many cases ap- 
proaching to black. Mure closely examined, small 
spots of slough will appear. 

The large intestines present a similar discolora- 
tion, deposit, softening and ulceration. The food 
contained in the intestines is generally dry and 
hard. 

In the air-passages of the lungs the mucous 
membrane is usually covered with black spots or 
a viscid mucous exudation. The anterior lobes 
are solidified, but remain bright red, tough and 
elastic. 

The heart and liver will appear spotted, and 
these spots, if closely examined, will appear 



12 HOG CHOLERA, OR 

small sloughs. Both sides of the heart contain 
soft, black clots of blood. 

The kidneys will be found soft and covered 
sometimes with pus. 

The brain and spinal marrow will be found ab- 
solutely rotten in protracted cases. 

All this, with the exception of the brain and 
spinal affection, of course, applies particularly 
to the fat hog, with which the disease originates, 
or to others in a similar condition taking it by 
contact. Where this condition is wanting, the 
symptoms and appearances, on both ante and 
post mortem examination, are somewhat different, 
though not essentially so. 

The disease, on the whole, bears a close re- 
semblance to yellow fever in man. The immedi- 
ate cause of death in both is congestion of the 
brain, lungs or kidneys. 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 13 



CHAPTER III. 



CAUSE OF INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 

I am satisfied from all my observation and ex- 
perience, that this disease originates only with 
the grain-fattened hog, and is the real, though 
seldom immediate effect of such feeding. I have 
never known a case to start with any other 
description of hog, and I repeat that the disease 
is in every other instance the effect of contagion. 
It is proper to state, that in this conclusion I am 
supported by the conjectures of many other minds, 
though these have in no instance, of which I am 
aware, been pushed to their ultimate and legiti- 
mate result. 

Thus Prof. Detmers in the paper, to which 
previous allusion has been made, says : " One 
very common mistake in feeding may also be 
mentioned as not entirely without influence. I 
refer to the practice of feeding nothing but corn. 
It may suffice, however, to say that corn does 



14 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 

not contain, in due proportion, all the elements 
necessary to tlie growth and developemeht of an 
animal ; it is destitute of some and contains others 
in too small a proportion." 

Just here the Professor pauses, no doubt from 
insufficient observation, upon the very brink of a 
great discovery. If lie had remembered in this 
connection the simple fact, that in other years, 
when the comparatively undeveloped agricultural 
condition of the country did not allow of such 
exclusive grain-feeding, this disease was unknown, 
and then gone on to further observation and ex- 
periment in test of this theory, there is little 
doubt that he would have reached my own con- 
clusion. 

Others have made conjectures in the same direc- 
tion. Thus Mr. I. Bacon, Wauconda, 111., says : 
"If the ringer was abolished, and the hog allowed 
to use his natural propensity, I have no doubt the 
disease would be greatly abated." 

This of course would be only because the food 
of the hog*\vould, in that case, be mainly roots. 

Mr. Z. I. Miller, Bay wick, Ky., says: "A gen- 
tleman living in Kelson, an adjoining county to 



INTESTINAL FEVEK IN SWINE. 15 

this one (Marion), has not had a case in a lot of 
two hundred head of hogs, while his neighbors 
have lost from three hundred and fifty to four 
hundred head. Why should this "be the case? 
Perhaps feeding has something to do with it. 
His neighbors, who feed nothing but dry corn, 
have suffered severely. Dry corn is too stimula- 
ting, and produces fever. 

Mr. Jno. K. Bevis, Taylorville, Bartholomew 
County, Indiana, says : " Recently I have come to 
the conclusion that the rooter on the nose was put 
there for a purpose, and have not rung or cut the 
nose of any swine since. I have no reason to 
complain, as my hogs have since done well." 

Mr. C. A. Adams, of Chillicothe, Livingston 
County, Missouri, says: " A change of feed from 
corn will alwa t vs prove beneficial among hogs 
when diseases are prevalent." 

Mr. R. K. Slosson, Verona, Grundy County, 
Illinois, says : " Indian corn is fed in many parts 
of the country, to the exclusion of those kinds of 
food, upon which the hog had previously lived, 
for hundreds of years perhaps, and corn is almost 
exclusively fat- producing. This necessarily pro- 



16 IIOG-CIIOLEKA, OR 



duces physiological changes in the system, and 
these changes being, to say the least, partially 
abnormal, the body is prepared to take on diseases 
which were originally unknown to the hog." 

Mr. J. Ballard, Niles, Berrien- County, Michigan, 
says: "Another cause is no doubt found in an 
exclusive corn feed. Thi s food is dry and heating, 
and soon produces fever, which is one of the first 
symptoms of so-called cholera." 

Mr. Jno. Powers, Rut] edge, Crenshaw County, 
Alabama, says: "Corn feeding will not do; it 
will kill in nine cases out of ten." 

Mr. L. Orto, Bradford, White County, Arkan- 
sas, says: "My hogs, which live entirely in the 
woods, are seldom affected with diseases of any 
kind. There are many wild hogs here, and I 
do not believe they are ever affected in any way." 

Mr. Charles F. Ingalls, Sublette, Lee County, 
Illinois, says: "I have thought that high feed, 
with Indian corn, from generation to generation, 
has worked constitutional debility in the hog." 

The above testimonies from many and widely 
different fields of observation and experiment, 
and written without mutual knowledge or concert 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 17 

on the part of their authors, sufficiently indicate 
a common tendency of thought in the observers 
of this disease. 

It is thus plain to my mind (and I hope to 
render it equally plain to the minds of all other 
candid men), that the health and disease of the 
hog depend originally on feeding. The rooter on 
the swine's snout indicates clearly by what means 
nature intended him to get his living. To be 
healthy he must find his food, in great part at 
least, in the ground. 

This point well understood, the next important 
thing is, that he should have easy rooting. 
Hence, soft bottoms, or ground shaded or rendered 
moist by a growth of timber are best for him. 
He should be allowed to run freely, for the most 
part, in the woods, or in ground broken and ren- 
dered soft by cultivation, and where he can find 
in sufficient quantity the roots which are the 
condition of his healthy life and normal growth. 
A high or exclusive grain-feeding renders the 
hog liable to disease in the same way as beer 
affects men. It is true the hog will fatten most 
rapidly on corn, just as the man will fatten most 



18 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 



rapidly on beer; but there is no sound health 
in either. The first stroke of disease or effect of 
excess lays them both low. 

Thus prepared, by a diet too highly stimulating, 
to take on disease, the slightest change of habit 
in the hog will often bring it on. A change of 
quarters, a change of weather, an unaccustomed 
exposure, over-heating, over-crowding, over-driv- 
ing, even the slightest and least noticed change 
may bring on the dreaded disease. And once 
developed in a single instance, there is no safety 
for the herd save in immediate, perfect and re- 
mote isolation of the healthy from the sick. 
Just as men and women liy from the contagion 
of yellow fever until cities are depopulated, so 
must hog be separated from hog till farms and 
plantations are left destitute of swine. This 
contagion is most deadly penetrating, subtile 
and active. It can be borne on the wind for a 
very long distance. It can be carried by a stream 
of pure running water. It will remain for months 
in an infected car or pen, and nothing but frost 
will destroy it ; for though the disease may 
originate in the winter, it will not spread beyond 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 19 

the immediate herd. Here again it is strikingly 
like yellow fever. 

It may be well to add that hogs bred from 
young sows, and fattened on corn, are more likely 
to develop the disease than any others. This 
remark is the result of a long and patient ob- 
servation of an unvarying effect. 

To conclude this part of the subject I may 
say that. the soundness of this theory has been 
demonstrated, to my complete satisfaction, by 
many experiments. I have found by these ex- 
periments, often repeated, that I could produce 
the disease called hog- cholera in any grain- 
fattened hog, by a little over-driving or over- 
feeding, or by any other decided change for the 
worse in his accommodations ; and have never 
been able to produce it by such experiments in 
any other than the grain-fattened hog. 



20 HOG-CHOLEKA, OR 



CHAPTER IV. 



PREVENTION AND CURK OF INTESTINAL FEVER IN 

SWINE. 

On this branch of the sub;eet I begin by saying 
that, so far from endeavoring or desiring to keep 
my remedy a secret, T have frequently recommend- 
ed and published it for the benefit of any who 
might be willing to make trial of its efficacy. But 
here I have met with no little difficulty. Pig- 
raisers, for the most part, seem endowed with a 
kind of fatality. If their hogs afe going to have 
the cholera, they will have it, and that is the end 
of it. It is useless, the\ seem to think, to take 
preventive measures. Besides, they have been 
greatly discouraged by a long experience of the 
inefficaey of popular nostrums, many of which they 
have tried, and in spite of all of which their 
hogs would, somehow, mysteriously die. Over 
and above all, my remedy was too simple. It 
did not strike them as sufficiently elaborate and 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 21 

expensive to meet the case of so terrible a scourge. 
In a few exceptional instances, however, it has 
been tried, and never, so far as I am informed, 
without success. It is on account of the difficulty 
above mentioned, that I have sought to draw the 
attention of the Government and the country to 
this subject, not doubting that the result of a full 
and careful investigation Avould be the discovery 
and general application of a remedy adequate to 
the evil. 

To prevent hog-cholera, then, it is only needful : 

1. To cease the practice of exclusive grain- 
feeding, and to feed largely on roots, of which the 
best of all is the turnip, and the next best the 
artichoke. 

2. To breed only or chiefly from mature sows. 

3. To allow the hog a fair and open range, in 
woods or bottoms, during a large proportion of 
the fattening season. 

3. To allow him a dry, open place in which to 
sleep, and where he can make his bed on dry 
ground or leaves, and not by any means on straw, 
cotton seed or manure. 

4. To give him unlimited access to muddy 



22 HOG-CHOLEKA, OR 

water. Clay is Ms natural disinfectant, and he 
will mix it to suit himself. If kept for a long- 
time from this, he will infallibly contract dis- 
ease and die. 

5 To give him salt frequently, and more espe- 
cially in warm weather. 

6. After putting him in the pen to fatten he 
should be turned out in damp weather. 

7. There should be stone coal or charcoal in 
his pen. He must have a means of disinfecting 
himself. 

8. His feeding-trough must be kept clean. 

9. Give him a few turnips daily with his corn. 

The disease called hog-cholera will never orig- 
inate with hogs treated in this way. Nor will 
they take it even by contagion. The exclusively 
grain-fattened hog, if attacked by this disease, 
dies in from two to fourteen days ; Avhile those 
permitted to run wild and iced on grass and roots 
live from two to eight weeks, and often recover 
without special treatment. As stated in a pre- 
vious chapter during several years in which 
I had under my care often as high as twenty 
thousand hogs, the disease never started in my 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 23 

herds, and when they took it, from contact with 
others, it was easily controlled and extinguished 
by separation and proper feeding. 

The disease, of which the symptoms have been 
clearly indicated, once distinctly developed in a 
herd of swine, the first thing to be done is to sep- 
arate the sick from the well by such a distance 
as to render contagion practically impossible. 

Then, with reference to the sick, it must be dis- 
tinctly understood that all drugs are either useless 
or worse than useless. Either the hog must cure 
himself or he will die. Give him a chance, how- 
ever, and he will cure himself, by following his 
own instinct of safety. This instinct is powerful 
and prevailing ; it will lead him to seek and find, 
if they are within his reach, those roots which are 
necessary, by their internal action, to counteract 
his disease. He will be observed, before drinking, 
to stir up and mix clay with the water which he 
drinks. This is his best medicine. There is no 
more powerful or efficient disinfectant. He needs 
it in health and uses it without stint whenever 
the opportunity is given him. He wallows and 
lies in it for hours every day. In this he follows 



24 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 

his instinct of self-purification. It is a mistake to 
suppose him a dirty animal ; on the contrary, he 
is one of the cleanest of all our domestic animals. 
He takes more pains to cleanse himself than any 
other. If he wallows in a filthy pool, it is not for 
the filth, but because there only he can find, mixed 
with water, the clay which is his natural disin- 
fectant. When he can find pure water on a bed 
of pure clay, he prefers it to the filthy soil to 
which he is too often condemned, because his 
keepers do not understand his nature and his 
wants. Having covered himself with a thick plas- 
ter of clay, and allowed it to soak into all the pores 
of his skin, he comes out, dries himself in the sun, 
and wind, and then rubs off the clay against the 
trees, fences or whatever he finds most conven- 
ient for his purpose. Then he has finished his 
toilet and is clean, and not only clean but pure 
and sweet. He has attended at once to his health 
and his luxury. He has thrown off those tenden- 
cies to disease to which, from the grossness of his 
feeding and the rapidity of his accretion, he is 
always liable. 

All this is in the nature of the hog when well 



INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 28 

When sick, it is because he has been violently 
turned out of the course of nature — cut off from 
those resources by which he would have kept 
himself in health if he had been permitted to do 
so. Now that he is diseased, he needs, first of 
all and above all, permission to follow his natural 
instincts. The feeding of corn should be, for a 
time at least, totally suspended. In place of corn, 
give him, for a week or ten days, as many turnips 
as he will eat ; and when he is better and the 
grain feeding is resumed, give him soft corn 
mixed with.turnips. This is generally all that 
can be done for him ; and this treatment, to be 
efficacious, must be prompt. Whenever the dis- 
ease has gone so far that the hog refuses to eat. 
and lacks the strength to disinfect himself, all 
efforts to save him will commonly prove useless. 
Dosing him with drugs is both idle and absurd, as 
" the game is not worth the candle." It would 
cost more to cure him, by that system (even if 
it could be accomplished, which it never can), 
than he would be worth when cured. If there are 
early symptoms of brain affection, however, it 
may sometimes prove useful to apply a seton, 



26 HOG-CHOLEEA, OK 



consisting of a leather string, on each side of the 
ridge of the neck. 

THE CASE SUPPOSED. 

To render the matter still plainer, so that it 
may be level to the apprehension of any mind, I 
will suppose that I am the owner of a hundred 
hogs, and that the disease known as hog-cholera 
appears among them. What, then, would I do ? I 
answer : 

1. That I would separate the sick from the well. 

2. I would give both a range limited only by 
my convenience of observing and caring for them. 

3. I would place within the reach of both stone- 
coal or charcoal, and salt. 

4. I would give both free access to water and 
clay, so that they could mix the clay and water 
to suit themselves. 

5. I would feed both, but particularly the sick, 
freely of turnips ; and if I had not, and could not 
procure the turnips, then on artichokes, potatoes, 
and any other roots of which they would eat 
freely. 

Finally, this done, I will guarantee that every 
hog not too sick to eat a full feed of turnips shall 



INTESTINAL FEVEE IN SWINE. 27 

get well, and that no other hog, thus treated and 
fed on turnips, shall take the disease, even by 
contagion. 

As will be seen by the subjoined analysis, the 
amount of nutritive matter in turnips is very 
small. The common kinds have from 90 to 92, 
and the rutabagas about 87 per cent, of water. 
The albumenoids are from 1 to 1.6 per cent., and 
carbohydrates vary from 5 per cent, in the com- 
mon to 9 per cent, in the rutabagas. 

The leading garden sorts are the White Dutch, 
the earliest ; the red-top strap-leaved, the best of 
the flat kinds; the Cow-horn, a foot long and 
three inches through, the half which grows above 
ground being green, and also grown as a held 
crop ; and Yellow Aberdeen, purplish above and 
yellow below, with a yellow flesh. The folio wing- 
is the analysis : 

SCOTCH TURNUP. 

Water S9.30 

Sugar 5.61 

Gum , 0.11 

Albumen 0.72 

Pectic Acid 1.76 

Oil 0.19 

Fibre ... 1.63 

Saline Matter 0.54 



28 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 

And the following is the analysis of the ash: 

Potash 41.96 

Soda 5.09 

Lime 13 60 

Magnesia 5.34 

Oxide of Iron 1.28 

Phosphoric Acid 7.58 

Sulphuric Acid 13.60 

Chlorine 3.60 

Silicia 7.95 

It will thus be seen that the turnip contains, 
in simply perfect proportion, the medicines need- 
ed to counteract this terrible disease. If pig- 
raisers w r ill cultivate or purchase and use it in 
accordance with the foregoing suggestions, the 
disease called hog-cholera will be banished from 
the earth. 

I have spoken, heretofore, only of the import- 
ance of this cure to the material interests of the 
country ; and the facts adduced go to show that, 
even in this point of view, it would be difficult to 
overstate the urgent necessity for a sure and effi- 
cacious preventive and remedy. But there is an- 
other aspect of the subject which ought not to be 
quite overlooked. I allude to the well-known fact 
that a very large proportion of the hogs driven or 
carried to market and there killed, are diseased. 
"When it is remembered that these hogs are almost 






INTESTINAL FEVER IN SWINE. 29 

exclusively corn -fattened, and that they have 
been over -heated, from crowding or driving, for 
several days previous to their arrival at the mar- 
ket, where they are almost immediately slaugh- 
tered ; and that intestinal fever, after it is actually 
contracted, requires from one to three weeks for 
its full and fatal development; and that the 
immediate cause of its development, and that 
which can, upon experiment, be shown invariably 
to produce it in the grain-fa ttcmed hog, is this 
same over-driving, over-crowding and over-heat- 
ing: I say, when all this is remembered, it is 
simply appalling to conjecture, how large a pro- 
portion of this bacon of merchandise must con- 
tain the germs of a horrible and fatal disease. It 
is is perhaps no exaggeration to say, that at least 
one-fourth of it is so poisoned. And while it is 
true that this disease is not directly communica- 
ble to man, it does by no means follow that this 
diseased meat, when consumed by men, women 
and children, may not originate other and equally 
fatal pestilences among themselves. Indeed, it is 
already a well-ascertained fact, with the medical 
profession, that certain deadly and loathsome hu- 



30 HOG-CHOLERA, OR 

man diseases originate in this precise way ; and 
how many others may he produced by the same 
\ means, remains to he discovered. It is therefore 
not merely the life and health of swine which de- 
pend upon the discovery and application of this 
cure, but the lives and health of the owners and 
consumers of pork and bacon. If, then, we say 
to the swine, metaphorically, " Root, hog, or die," 
it may not be amiss to say, without metaphor, to 
those entrusted with the care and culture of 
swine, " Let the hog root, or you shall die." 



31 



TEXAS CATTLE-DISEASE. 



This disease is hardly ever found in Texas. 
It is the simple effect of over-driving, over-crowd- 
ing, and protracted hunger and thirst followed by 
over-eating and drinking. It is not found in 
Texas, because these excesses and abuses are not 
commonly practiced near the starting-point of a 
herd, but only as. they approach their destination 
in the great markets. 

Like the corresponding disease in swine, it is 
simply an intestinal fever, and its effects are very 
rapidly disorganizing, when once it is fully de- 
veloped, though it requires from one to three 
weeks for its fuil development. I have noticed, 
on post-mortem examination, that the food in the 
paunch has invariably been found dry and hard. 

It is very contagious, and more especially to 
home cattle, and the contagion is most deadly 
and destructive. 

It may be cured, however, very promptly and 



32 TEXAS CATTLE DISEASE. 

certainly, by an exclusively watery diet, and the 
best and most certain remedy is young corn in 
the milk. There is no danger of excess, or need 
of caution to be employed. The diseased herd 
may be safely turned into a field of young corn, 
and left to cure themselves, which they will do 
in a few days. 

I have tried this remedy repeatedly, with uni- 
form success, and I have recommended it to others, 
whose experiments have been equally success- 
ful. 

If green corn cannot be procured, any other 
succulent food will answer the same purpose ; 
though the corn is unquestionably the best. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




J5|r 3 Any one who shall make trial of either of 
the above remedies, is respectfully requested to 
communicate the result to 

JOHN S. MELLON, 

508 Chestnut Street, 

St. Louis, Mo. 



